Three months ago this market looked like it was firmly stuck in neutral. February's numbers were soft, March was cautious, and even the spring surge in April and May was encouraging but incomplete. June adds another piece to what is becoming a more consistent picture: this market is healing, slowly and unevenly, but the direction of travel is no longer in question.

The City Picture: Closing the Gap

Total residential sales across Vancouver reached 708 in June 2026, up 3.7% from May and 3.1% higher than June 2025. That marks three consecutive months of year-over-year sales gains for the city, a streak we haven't seen since before the rate correction took hold.

The 10-year seasonal average for June sales in Vancouver is 786 transactions. At 708, we're now running approximately 10% below that long-term benchmark. That gap has narrowed meaningfully: back in February we were sitting nearly 30% below the 10-year average, and as recently as May we were still running 20.6% light. The improvement isn't...

Most advice about buying a condo in Vancouver comes down to one word: don't. I've spent years warning buyers away from the fees, the surprise special assessments, and the leasehold traps that quietly drain a family's savings. This time I'm doing the opposite. I'm showing you the one kind of condo I would actually trust with my own family's money.

If you're moving to Vancouver, or moving within Metro Vancouver and weighing whether a condo even makes sense for your family, this is the buyer's framework I wish more people had before they signed anything. It's less about any single building and more about how to separate a safe, sellable home from an expensive mistake you can't walk away from.

I put six common condo types through the same gauntlet. Each one has to survive a series of tests covering who really shares the repair bill, what you actually own versus what you only borrow, whether a floorplan works for a family or quietly fights it, and the one factor almost nobody talks about: whether...